6 NFL Scenarios Ahead of 2023 Season We Won't Believe Were Real 5 Years from Now
We know by now how quickly the NFL moves.
Five years ago this summer, we were speculating on how Jon Gruden's second stint with the Oakland Raiders would play out. Now, Gruden is out of football and the Raiders are out of Oakland.
At that time, we were also talking about how the Philadelphia Eagles might get back to the Super Bowl with Carson Wentz and Doug Pederson. Now, we're analyzing the same team's chances to return to that game with an entirely different quarterback-coach duo.
Baker Mayfield and Sam Darnold had a lot more rookie hype that year than Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson, while the hottest preseason candidates for big awards were dudes like Drew Brees, Todd Gurley and Ezekiel Elliott (all currently unemployed).
In other words, what we're fussing about right now is extremely unlikely to matter much in another half-decade's time.
With that in mind, here are half a dozen heavily discussed scenarios this offseason that we won't believe were big conversation points by the time training camps launch in 2028 (if not a hell of a lot earlier).
Are Daniel Jones and Saquon Barkley Going to Make the Giants Contenders Again?
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The New York Giants handed Daniel Jones a four-year, $160 million contract and committed $11 million to Saquon Barkley, presumably because they believe that duo can lead them to contender status after they technically experienced playoff success in 2022.
But the reality is they're foolishly gambling on both players. Jones hasn't thrown more than 15 touchdown passes in a season since he was a rookie in 2019 and still faces major questions about his consistency and reliability as a passer, while Barkley is coming off his first strong, healthy campaign since he was a rookie Pro Bowler in 2018.
The odds that Jones suddenly becomes a Pro Bowl-caliber quarterback are low, as are the odds that Barkley puts together a second consecutive healthy and productive campaign. Running backs are low-value, limited-impact players to begin with, and the oft-fragile Barkley's best days are likely already behind him at age 26.
The Giants snuck into the playoffs with just nine wins and a negative scoring margin before beating an overrated Minnesota Vikings team on wild-card weekend last year. Doubling down on that is a mistake.
Except both players to be off the roster well before we reflect on this in 2028, with the Giants having gone through yet another rebuild by then.
Does Justin Fields have the arm to become a franchise quarterback?
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We asked similar questions about super-mobile Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson less than five years ago, and he went on to prove doubters wrong in his MVP 2019 campaign.
I'm not telling you Justin Fields will win MVP this year, or any year, but I do think he's a unique enough player with enough arm talent to become a very strong and reliable franchise signal-caller for the Chicago Bears.
During a dominant rushing season for Fields in 2022, his passer rating jumped from 74.6 in his first seven games to 93.1 in his final eight affairs. He threw 12 touchdown passes to just five interceptions during that latter run. On top of that, among 37 quarterbacks with at least 30 deep pass attempts, the 24-year-old ranked 10th with a passer rating of 98.3 on those throws (he also ranked 11th in completed air yards per pass attempt).
He has it in him, especially with more support following an aggressive offseason from the Bears' front office. Just watch.
Can Aaron Rodgers revive his career with the New York Jets?
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It's probably safe to say Aaron Rodgers won't be in the league in five years, despite his comments Tuesday at Jets training camp, but that's not even what I'm getting at here. I'm thinking more along the lines of the fact we'll laugh Rodgers ever became a member of the New York Jets and caused many of us to take Gang Green seriously ahead of the 2023 campaign.
Rodgers is about to turn 40, and he's likely toast.
His passer rating plummeted by more than 20 points in 2022, with his yards-per-attempt average sinking by nearly a full yard and his QBR dropping astronomically from 69.1 to 39.3. He had a crummy 86.1 passer rating in the second half of one-score games, a mediocre 88.7 rating on deep pass attempts and an lousy 76.2 rating on third down. And he ranked well below the league median in completed air yards per attempt despite being one of the least-pressured quarterbacks in the NFL.
The 2023 Jets have some talent, but by no means are they significantly better than the 2022 Packers. Green Bay ranked four spots ahead of the Jets last year in terms of DVOA (defense-adjusted value over average) at Football Outsiders, and they're in an extremely tough division in the stronger of the two conferences.
Watch for Rodgers to be one-and-done in New York, and for his time with the team to be long forgotten in half a decade or less.
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Which 49ers quarterback is the future of the franchise?
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The San Francisco 49ers are a contender, partly because they have a few interesting options at quarterback.
Or, put differently, the 49ers are a contender, despite the fact they have a few unproven options at quarterback.
It's possible to get excited about Brock Purdy after he won all five of his regular-season starts as a rookie, but he's still a seventh-round draft pick who has thrown 170 passes in his career against unsuspecting defenses and is now coming off a major injury without that element of surprise.
It's possible to believe Trey Lance can finally come through, but it's not a good sign that the 2021 No. 3 overall pick has managed to start just four games in his career, and a much worse sign that the team has reportedly fielded calls on Lance. The fact he's seemingly been replaced by Mr. Irrelevant doesn't bode well either.
And then there's Darnold, who is now on his third NFL roster, presumably because he's got a sub-60 career completion percentage and a sub-80 career passer rating. The 26-year-old has shown very few signs of being capable of putting it together at the NFL level.
Put it all together and it's easy to see how in a matter of a few years, none of those three will be quarterbacking in San Francisco.
Can the Bills finally win a Super Bowl?
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The Buffalo Bills are famous loveable losers. And because that has yet to change in January even with a star-studded roster headlined by standout franchise quarterback Josh Allen, that familiar perennial question continues to be asked about the team's prospects of winning its first-ever Super Bowl.
My gut tells me that it's only a matter of time before Allen and the Bills break through, and that by 2028 we'll be talking about this core's ability to win multiple Vince Lombardi Trophies and go toe-to-toe with Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs when it comes to dynasty status.
Maybe I'm being too optimistic about a franchise that often seems snake-bitten, but Allen really has everything you want in a championship-caliber leader and he's surrounded by considerable talent.
Besides, the law of averages has to favor Buffalo one of these days. The team and its city are due.
Do the Lions finally have the recipe for sustained success?
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The Detroit Lions and their city are arguably even more due than the Bills, but I actually think we wind up reflecting on these Lions in the opposite light.
Sure, they nearly made the playoffs and were a top-10 team in DVOA in a breakout 2022 campaign, and they've since become stronger on paper with key additions via the draft and free agency. But it's still really hard to give this team the benefit of the doubt.
That has something to do with the fact they haven't proven close to as much as Buffalo has in recent years (in other words, 2022 might have been a fluke), and it has a lot to do with the fact I still don't trust the extremely inconsistent Jared Goff under center.
Goff was acquired more or less as a salary absorption when the Lions moved on from Matthew Stafford as part of the rebuild that is partly responsible for the team's recent rise, but we're still talking about a 28-year-old who posted a sub-90 passer rating between 2019 and 2021.
I still doubt Goff is on this roster in a couple years' time, which realistically means the Lions will have to wait for their glory days.
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